Kirby's Star Stacker

"This game’s lack of popularity is puzzling."

Kirby's Star Stacker is an addictive, yet often overlooked puzzle game for the original Game Boy. The goal of the game's normal mode is to destroy a certain number of blocks to defeat King Dedede, the villain who's always causing trouble for Kirby to sort out.

There isn't much of a story in this game. King Dedede occasionally pops up and says something to taunt you, but that's about all there is to it. Then again, since when are puzzle games known for their deep stories?

In Kirby's Star Stacker, you control blocks as they fall from the sky, just as you would in Tetris, Dr. Mario, and many other puzzle games. However, blocks are not the only things raining down in Kirby's Star Stacker. Owls, fish, and hamsters can also be seen falling from the skies in this game! These are actually Kirby's friends from Kirby's Dream Land 2. When two like animals are arranged across from each other either horizontally or vertically, they disappear, along with any blocks that might be between them. However, this doesn't work if a different animal is between them!

When you begin a level, there are already blocks and animals present. This can help you start destroying blocks sooner, but it also means that you'll have to cope if the blocks and animals present aren't in the ideal spots! In addition, an extra line of blocks and/or animals appears at the bottom of the screen fairly frequently. This adds challenge, but it also helps you clear blocks and animals by making animals available at the bottom of the screen where you wouldn't be able to maneuver those that you can control.

In addition to the standard blocks, there are two other types of blocks that are found in this game. One type is the bomb block. If destroyed, a bomb block will blow up and destroy everything on the same horizontal row as it. The second type of block is a plain-looking block that cannot be immediately destroyed, but instead morphs into a regular block if positioned between two like animals.

As in many puzzle games, you are rewarded for forming chains; that is, destroying blocks (or even just two like animals next to each other) in such a manner that it causes other blocks or animals to fall and be destroyed immediately without the player doing anything between these occurrences. In this game, when you form chains, Kirby makes blocks fall from the sky and then immediately disappear, helping to deplete King Dedede's “health”. These blocks also make a new chain-forming strategy possible: if the falling blocks land between two like animals, they will be cleared along with the animals and count toward the chain that made them fall in the first place, triggering another set of blocks to fall. This process can be repeated for large chain reactions. Initially, only two blocks fall, but more and more fall as more blocks are destroyed by the chain reactions, until two full rows of blocks begin falling.

Kirby's Star Stacker features 3 modes to be played alone: normal, challenge, and time attack. Normal mode features various difficulty levels with a total of 106 different stages. The goal, as mentioned earlier, is to destroy a preset number of blocks in order to defeat King Dedede and move on to the next level. Challenge mode plays like these stages, except that there is no King Dedede and no preset number of blocks to destroy, so the level just keeps going, getting faster and faster until you can't keep up anymore. The idea is to break as many blocks as you can without losing. Time attack challenges you to break as many blocks as you can within 3 minutes. Your records for these modes are saved to the game pak. The game ends in any of these modes if the blocks in either of the middle vertical rows reach the top.

A 2-player mode is also available if you have 2 game paks and a Game Boy link cable; since I only have one game pak, I cannot comment on this mode. There is also a tutorial available in-game, which could be helpful if you don't have an instruction manual.

Graphics in this game are very good for a Game Boy game. It's easy to tell who all the characters are. Blocks, stars, etc. look as they should. When played on a Game Boy Color, Advance, Player, or Super Game Boy, the game gains color, making it look even better.

Music in the game is pretty much what you would expect from Kirby. Simple, cheerful music is abundant. If you've played other Kirby games before, you'll recognize some of the tunes. I like most of the music, but the music that plays when your stack is nearing the top can get annoying if you don't clear some blocks quickly. Other than that, I don't have a problem with the music, but those who can't stand "kiddie” music might want to turn their volume down. Sound effects are average, not especially good or bad. There isn't anything that will get on your nerves in the way of sound effects.

So, in conclusion, Kirby's Star Stacker is a puzzle game that deserves the recognition that Tetris, Dr. Mario, etc. get. Nowadays, you can probably get your hands on this game for a bargain price, and I suggest that you don't hesitate to do so if you like puzzle games and aren't bothered by a “kiddie” appearance.

Scoring:
Gameplay: 8.5
Story: 0.5
Graphics: 9.5
Sound: 7.0
Difficulty: fairly easy
Replay value: 6.0
Average score: 6.3
Actual score: 8.5 rounded to 9 (great)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/03/06